The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff were killed in a rocket attack on their car, a Libyan official said, as they were rushed from a consular building stormed by militants denouncing a U.S.-made film insulting the Prophet Mohammad.

Last edited by shafnutz05 on Wed Sep 12, 2012 7:00 am, edited 2 times in total.

The U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three of his staffers have been killed in a rocket attack on their car as they were rushed from a consular building to safety.

The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff were killed in a rocket attack on their car, a Libyan official said, as they were rushed from a consular building stormed by militants denouncing a U.S.-made film insulting the Prophet Mohammad.

Gunmen had attacked and burned the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, a center of last year's uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, late on Tuesday evening, killing one U.S. consular official. The building was evacuated.

The Americans were targeted in an attack in their car, trying to move to a safer venue away from the violent protests that erupted at the U.S. Consulate, Reuters reported. Stevens died of suffocation, while the three other personnel were killed by gunshot wounds, CBS News reports. Their names have not yet been released.

Troy Loney wrote:Has this been confirmed by a source other than the Libyan official?

As long as Israel exists there is going to be rampant anti-americanism in the middle east, and as long as these countries are poor, they will remain militant.

It has been condemned by the president and others, so I am assuming it's pretty much a done deal at this point.

Re: Israel, I think this has less to do with Israel and more to do with just the ripe environment for religious extremism in these countries (Libya, Egypt, etc). Israel certainly doesn't make them love us, but that doesn't appear to be a primary cause of this current conflagration.

Is a US Embassy not American soil? I understand shooting into a crowd will not help any situation, nor is it a good idea...but are the guards supposed to just sit there and do nothing? I don't understand the rules of engagement in these instances.

JeffDFD wrote:Is a US Embassy not American soil? I understand shooting into a crowd will not help any situation, nor is it a good idea...but are the guards supposed to just sit there and do nothing? I don't understand the rules of engagement in these instances.

It depends. Sometimes a consulate shares the same soil as the embassy itself, sometimes they are located at different spots. There can be multiple consuls, but only one ambassador. It seems to me that this had to have been a targeted attack that used the angry mob as a distraction, but who knows.

Troy Loney wrote:Has this been confirmed by a source other than the Libyan official?

As long as Israel exists there is going to be rampant anti-americanism in the middle east, and as long as these countries are poor, they will remain militant.

It has been condemned by the president and others, so I am assuming it's pretty much a done deal at this point.

Re: Israel, I think this has less to do with Israel and more to do with just the ripe environment for religious extremism in these countries (Libya, Egypt, etc). Israel certainly doesn't make them love us, but that doesn't appear to be a primary cause of this current conflagration.

I'm making a blanket statement about middle eastern opinion of the US. I'd say this is a function of their opinion of this country, from what I understand this was triggered by some youtube video that insulted the prophet. I'm inclined to believe that the video wouldn't independently spark these attacks...it's more the preexistent hate, and that hate has a lot to do with US - Isreal relations.

Eh, I think you are overstating our government's support of Israel, IN THIS INSTANCE. There have been other violent, widespread reactions to insults of the prophet emanating from other countries (that Dutch cartoonist certainly comes to mind).

When that Danish newspaper publishes those cartoons, per Wikipedia:

Four months later, Muslims protested across the Islamic world, some of which escalated into violence with instances of police firing on crowds of protestors resulting in a total of more than 100 reported deaths,[1] including the bombing of the Danish embassy in Pakistan and setting fire to the Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, storming European buildings, and burning the Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, French and German flags in Gaza City.[2][3] Various groups, primarily in the Western world, responded by endorsing the Danish policies, including "Buy Danish" campaigns and other displays of support. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen described the controversy as Denmark's worst international crisis since World War II.[4]

And Denmark is about as benign of a country in terms of foreign policy that you can find. No, this reaction and others has a lot more to do with the rampant religious extremism in that region than any other factor.